February 2, 2008

That Build a Bear is a smart place. We received in the mail a $5 birthday certificate for Jocelyn so I decided why not - we need another stuffed animal around here! But anyway, she got there and looked over the choices for a while but couldn't decide so I finally had to give her just 2 choices and then she decided easily - a bright pink pepto bismal-looking bear. (The other choice was a brown furry bear).

So I hand her the bear and tell her to stand in line and I must say she's the cutest stander in liner ever! But then when it was our turn she didn't want to go, and when I handed her bear to the stuffer person, she started screaming! Like SCREAMING! So unlike her! Another helper came over to show her the color buttons on the fluff machine and she was quiet while it was being explained, and then she started screaming again! When it was stuffed she quieted down and did the rub the heart on your nose and give it a kiss thing, which was just too cute. Then I show her the bear and you'd think I was revealing the head of medusa! She got this terrified look on her face and I decided to tuck the bear into my arm before she started screaming again.

Now the bear-clothes-shopping, that was a different story! This girl was born to shop! She very much enjoyed pointing out all the pink outfits (her birthday is at the right time of year - they were rich with pink for valentine's day!) We settled on a pink flower dress, pink underpants, and pink hello kitty slippers. It is SO pink! She was happy with the bear by the time we left, and hugged it in the car and has been carrying it around all day. I have no idea what upset her so much! In retrospect I think she got up earlier than usual because when we got home she fell asleep on the couch, and she doesn't nap usually. She was crying while we had to name the bear, so I named it Jocelyn, but she says the bear's name is Pink. I've got some picture of her with the bear and will post them tomorrow or Monday.

We played hide and seek tonight. To hide, Jocelyn runs into another room, and then lies on the ground face down. hahaha

Jocelyn is not good at sharing. Any toy that Jesse wants, she takes and holds over her head. It's pretty funny when she gets two or three up there! Of course, Jesse is no fool, that's when he decides it's time to give her a good belt to the gut. oy - these two bicker and brawl all day long!! And if I decide to hug one without the other?!?! Lord help us all.

Timothy has been recruited into a recess production of High School Musical 2. He's Troy. He went over to a girl's house today to practice for 2 hours. This week he printed out all the lyrics to the songs and then as he was showing them to me he said "wow, this is a lot to do for me - I have to practice karate, viola, and now this. I don't know if I can do it all." Then he played Webkinz for 2 hours. «roll eyes»

When I picked him up from Emma's house today there were 5 little girls and Timothy. In the car I asked him if he had fun. "It was ok," he said. "They mostly told me what to do a lot."

I got invited to a lunch with 3 co-workers to celebrate one of them (Kate) passing her (actuarial) exam (now she just has one left). They were going for sushi and I'm very proud to say that I went and I tried actual sushi. I got the Japanese Lunch Box with assorted sushi - which means I got this cute little sectioned plate with a scoop of rice and a mini-salad and then 2 dumplings (those seemed cooked), 2 california rolls, and 5 pieces of raw fish with rice tucked underneath them. The dumplings were very good, the california rolls were so so (I'm not a huge avocado fan), and the raw fish was actually quite good. One was tuna - I don't know what the others were. Surprisingly, I was too full to eat the rice or salad. Well, I was also saving room for dessert - warm hazelnut chocolate lava cake (which I shared with another coworker). Oh, and also had miseo soup first - that I didn't care for. Tofu is gross (I got by that part by swallowing the little bits whole instead of chewing) and the seaweed flavor leaves a bit to be desired. But anyway, I was so glad I tried it! They had plenty of cooked dishes I could have wimped out on, but I did not.

Morgan's week was so-so - most days were alright, but one day he bit his para. He traded beds with Uncle Joey this week (Uncle Joey has a new apartment which is a studio, so he was trying to maximize floor space by acquiring a smaller bed). So Morgan has a queen bed now and looks just adorable in it and seems to Iike it very much. I ordered him a bedding set and some sheets from overstock.com. The set I really liked said "dry clean only", so I went with choice #2.

No big news on Jesse I don't think. His molars are about halfway in. Earlier this week they were keeping him up so I brought him down to get some tylenol. Just as I was finishing measuring it out - he grabbed it from me, stuck it in his mouth, and sucked it down! Then he went back to sleep and slept all night - I guess that's what he needed!

Tax time again -I'm trying to get motivated to go download turbotax .... 

January 27, 2008

Once upon a time there was a pretty little princess named Jocelyn who liked to have tea parties. The princess and her mother the queen live in a house of blue and there has not previously been much call for tea parties. But lucky for the princess, Santa brought her a new porcelain teddy bear tea set. So the queen prepared the tea and some miniature coffee cakes on the miniature teddy bear plates and the two of them sat down to tea. They were having such fun that soon the oldest prince wanted to join them.

The prince said his name was Mrs. Huckleberry and spoke with an english accent, but the queen and the princess were not fooled. They shared their tea with him but giggled at his silliness. When they were done the queen took the princess up to bed and tucked her in with some bedtime stories and wondered what she had done right in this life to have such a beautiful princess to share her blue castle with.

Now this particular princess knows that she is a princess. If the queen mistakenly calls her Jocelyn, the princess says "no, I'm PRINCESS Jocelyn". When asked what the name of the littlest prince is, she replies "that's sweetie pie". Princess Jocelyn has a birthday approaching and she is very excited about it. The queen has shown her the presents she'll get to open and each morning the princess asks if it is time for her birthday party. At night the queen can sneak up to her room and stand quietly at the door and hear the princess singing happy birthday to herself. At the end of the song the princess says to herself "here, have a present".

The princess has a slight obsession with drawing and coloring and has recently redecorated her walls with drawings of strange creatures that grow arms and legs out of their heads and hair that stands on end but have big eyes and smiles. One day when the princess was performing acts of coloring before the queen, she broke her crayon. "Oh how sad, the crayon is broken," she said, looking at her crayon. "That's ok, I'll just get another one, I'll be right back Mommy."

The littlest prince, Prince Sweetie Pie, gained his freedom this week. The gate that preciously barred him from full access to the upper levels of the castle was removed as Prince Sweetie Pie has become adept at climbing both up and down the castle stairs. Prince Sweetie Pie could not be happier! He finds the princess as irresistible as the rest of the kingdom does and wants to follow her all around and poke her belly button. You see, the princess has been trying to convert the blue castle to a nudist institution, despite the best efforts of the king and queen to prevent this. She squeals with delight when Prince Sweetie Pie pokes her belly button, and giggles like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

The princess's older brother, Prince Morgan Porgan, has been having issues staying in his room at night. The king and queen bought a gate to contain him, but Prince Morgan Porgan broke the gate and snuck out of his room after the king and queen had gone to bed and managed to stay up all night playing video games and swinging. The next day at school Prince Morgan Porgan was VERY tired and almost fell asleep at his desk. So the king and queen had to alter the design of the gate and (fingers crossed) seem to have done so successfully. For 3 nights Prince Morgan Porgan has stayed in his room and seems quite chipper from actually getting some sleep. In the mornings he runs a block against the gate and the king gets up and lets him out. Somehow he knows not to do this at 3am! (I imagine that would NOT amuse the king).

The king and queen celebrated 15 years together this week. They tried to remember a time before they had such a loud and busy castle, but they could not. The king bought purple roses for the queen, knowing they are her favorite. Upon seeing the flowers, Princess Jocelyn exclaimed, "oh look! They're adorable!"

At the royal family dinner one night this week, somehow the subject of computer modems came up. "What's a modem?" asked the oldest prince. The king and queen explained the ancient tradition of dial-up.

I guess that's the update from the blue castle - the royal family hopes that all of you are enjoying your weekend. 

January 21, 2008

Holy good golly it is COLD out!!

So I found some movies from Feb 2001 to July 2001 - when Morgan was 7-12 months. I watched it all and I gotta say, even now, even REALLY looking, he seems perfectly normal to me (besides being covered in eczema, poor kid). He responded to his name, he did the hand motions to the song ‘open shut them’, he was saying mama and baba, clapping, making eye contact, playing with balls and cars, army crawling, and generally grunting. There was only one little thing - this strange little hand motion he did - but it was sort of like the one that went with the song, so who knows. On the tape I said it was the thing he did when he wanted to be picked up.

I've got to find the next set of tapes tomorrow so I can see what happened next. I believe it was around 15 months when he started spinning plates, so whatever happened was after 12 months but before 15. One thing is that he had nothing but formula for the first year - no solids at all because of his gag reflex (which I guess would be another weird thing). So no gluten, no dairy prior to one ... but also the MMR was at 12 months and that's when the mercury was still in there ... I don't know. Not that it matters particularly, but it's still interesting.

The really interesting thing was Timothy. I always say that he was borderline ASD when he was little. Well there was no borderline about it - he was full on asperger's with no debate! He turned 3 in June 2001 so this was the surrounding months. The kid was WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD. He spoke generally in movie quotes. You could NOT have a conversation with him! He only had triggers as to what he would say or do. If I said "one" then he'd start counting and not be deterred until he was done. He ran through full cartoon sections. He couldn't answer questions, especially once he saw the camera was on as he was too distracted and OCD over the camera. It was so strange to watch! I even called him rainman on tape trying to get his attention away from the script he was doing! Seriously, he had no original thought or ideas at all, that were obvious to the camera anyway. If I saw that in a child today I'd call EI myself.

The other funny thing about Timothy is that he had Jocelyn's voice - or vice versa I guess! Same laugh, same voice - except Timothy had a lisp (I assume due to the gaping distance between his teeth where the binky usually sat).

Well I got Morgan's new gate installed. Hard-mounted, 42in high with child proof one handed open. My butt! Morgan had it open in no time!! The only advantage to this gate is that we can *hear* it when he opens it so then we can run in there and put him back. That worked around 5am. At 8am (ok, yes, we were still in bed at 8am) he came into our room with a big smile on his face. He crawled into bed between us. Jesse decided to love on him and started crawling on him and giving him kisses. Morgan kissed him back! He also touched his face - awww. So they had a little snuggle fest and it was just too adorable.

Jocelyn has a new passion for reading books and we have been going through a dozen a night probably. Of course, if Jesse tries to touch one that is in the queue while we are reading .... oy. Jesse has a new passion for poking Jocelyn's belly button and giggling. haha. So at least it works out for him that we can't seem to keep clothing on her! Actually she's been doing better now that it's cold out.

Jocelyn and I went to Target on Saturday to get Chase's birthday present and a new hair dryer for me. She was little miss chatty the whole time pointing out all the various toys she saw. Then we ran into someone I know from work and she clammed up like she didn't know how to speak. Isn't it always the way!! I picked up a few more things for her for her birthday and got everything wrapped.

I asked Jocelyn yesterday if she wanted to paint her nails and she did, so I said we had to cut them first and we did without her giving me any hard time. Then when I said she could go pick out paints and she asked for paper - she wanted to actually paint. So I found some water colors I've had sitting around for years and showed her how to dip the brush. She sat at the table for TWO HOURS and painted! Every once in a while she'd say "look mommy!" and I'd tell her how great it was, and then she'd keep going. Quite a concentrated look on her face too! It was super cute.

The application for preschool came this week and we got it filled out and it's ready to go into the mail tomorrow. The questions were really hard though like "My child has tantrums never rarely sometimes often always" and others like that. I think the hardest one was "My child's language is understood by others never rarely sometimes often always". I put often but that's because I can almost always understand her - but I'm not sure how often other random strangers can understand her? I guess we'll see when she has her assessment! 

January 12, 2008

Today Jocelyn was sitting on Josh's lap and Morgan spontaneously came over to her and hugged her. She LOVED it. So she held her arms out and asked for more hugs ("more hugs Morgan?"). He hugged her again and then touched both her cheeks with his hands. This is how he says he loves you, but it was the first time he had ever done it to her so she was scared. When he let go she looked at me confused and frightened and I told her "Morgan loves you Jocelyn, that's how Morgan says I Love You". She turned to Morgan and said "more hands Morgan?" touching her face as she said it. He was on to his next task by then and didn't respond, but I just thought it was so cute and sweet. She adores him and now I know he adores her too.

I heard from Morgan's preschool teacher today and found out that the 1/1 cutoff for the integrated preschool is flexible so I can apply for Jocelyn to attend in the fall and they'll have her in to observe her and see if she's mature enough. I'm so excited!! She would so love it there! Now if only I can get her to be more mature ... haha

I ordered a new gate for Morgan's room. This one attaches to the door frame and is 42" tall. I'm hoping that will keep him in his room in the morning. While the melatonin works on most nights, even then he gets up around 5am (vs. 4am on the others). We've learned to unplug the TV and stereo, so he had been just swinging all morning, but now he's started eating. If he eats gluten-food, the report on his day from his teachers is not good. One morning this week he ate goldfish and his teacher wrote that he had several meltdowns during the day and couldn't manage to stay for assembly (when usually he loves assemblies!). She said it was his worst day all year. So that inspired me to order the gate. Should be here this week I would think.

He's also still chewing everything at school so they got some 'chewelry' for him which is basically necklaces made out of curly plastic that is, I guess, fun to chew. She said he chewed it, so that was step one. He's not really chewing at home, so we're not having as much of an issue, though I may get him some for car rides.

Oh, and Jocelyn had another week with no accidents! I dare say she's potty trained, and did so all on her own. woo hoo! Now she goes in, closes the door, pees and/or poops, empties her potty into the big potty, and then knocks on the door to be let out. She's also learned how to lock the door when it's open, leave the bathroom, and then close it so that the empty bathroom is locked. Crafty little bugger.

We came across a book we have where it came with a CD of the story as well and Jocelyn really likes it, so I went out today and got some more for her birthday. We were GOING to go to Target and get Chase's present afterwards but in the 2 minutes drive from Border's to Target Jesse decided to somehow pour his bottle of OJ all over (ALL OVER) himself. Oy, so that will have to wait.

Jocelyn has spent hours this week coloring, and hours playing with playdoh - it's so funny to have a kid that sits there and does table work! She loves her coloring books and makes a concerted effort at staying in the lines. She doesn't succeed, but definitely gives it her all!

It was beautiful out today and I got to run outside - did 4.2mi in 45 min. That was all I had in me - it's really been too long just doing the treadmill, I've lost my stamina. During the week I've been trying to do 25 min on the treadmill each day, but some days after 10 min I throw it in. Unfortunately, exercise isn't a thought-that-counts situation! haha. Now on the news they are saying it's going to snow snow snow Sunday night -like 12 inches perhaps. blech.

Let's see, what else. Timothy bought a webkinz with his holiday money and it arrived today so he now only spent a good part on the day on webkinz, but then his new chihuahua hung out with him watching video games. He also went over to a neighbor's house this week and they *gasp* played outside.

Jesse continues to explore the world of talking. He's branched into what one might call purposeful babbling, where he seems to THINK he is making sense, but actually is not. The cutest was tonight when he was crying and I picked him up and handed him the yogurt bottle he had dropped a few minutes before. He said "no" and swatted it away, and then pointed to my chest and said "mama". awww!

Jocelyn has figured out that Jesse can do ring around the rosie except that he doesn't "fall down" - so she pushes him. oy! Then he doesn't get up fast enough either so she tries to pull him up too. She's not strong enough for that though. I took him with me to Borders today and let him walk around. He would have been quite content to walk all over the place all afternoon. What he was NOT content to do was stand still for a second while I picked out what I wanted. I was trying to hold him while he flailed to get down at the checkout counter and the checker person said "how you doing big guy?" and he says "goo" and the checker person was like "did he just say good???" I don't think he did, but passed it off like he was a genius anyway.

Ok it's late, I should probably go get some sleep. Jesse had another week sleeping through the night and I tell you, I could get used to this! I feel like all rested and stuff. 

January 6, 2008

Well good afternoon everyone! Another busy week here in crazyland - made more hectic by my recent addiction to electronic scrabble.

We all went back to work/school on Wednesday. Morgan had a good week, but he usually does after a vacation - probably because he's so excited to leave the house! I told his teacher how much he likes the swing at home and she says they don't have swings at school. What school doesn't have swings??? I asked Timothy if his school has swings and it does. Weird! Maybe I'll write the principal...

Jocelyn got to visit her new school this week and to say she loved it would be an understatement. I got an email from the director afterwards who said she certainly anticipated no problems! haha. She's all signed up for Mondays and Wednesdays. We did the later session (I think it's 11 - 12:45) because Jocelyn tends to sleep in in the morning and then be a BEAR, so she'll do better a little later I think. Or at least Josh will do better getting her out of the house!

Oh this is funny - Jocelyn calls me running on the treadmill "going in the stroller" - I guess because the only time she's ever in a stroller is when I take her and Jesse out in the jogger - hahaha.

Jesse is starting to use mama in a way that makes me think he knows what it means, which is just adorable. He's trying lots of new words, though his fallbacks are no and ut-oh and da? Da? means anything that he's pointing at. I think it started as door because that's usually what he's pointing at, but now it pretty much goes for everything.

He's big into imitating, which of course thrills us. He LOVES the vacuum and now REALLY LOVES his play vacuum! He was imitating me while I was doing yoga this morning and it was just too cute!! Jocelyn was trying to do it as well, but she was actually doing a pretty good job. Of course, she was nekkid from the waist down, so downward facing dog was not a photo-op - hahaha.

So the reason that Jocelyn was nekkid from the waist down was that she takes her pants off every time she uses the potty - which she does all on her own! She hasn't had an accident all week and even wakes up dry. Yay Jocelyn! Josh has stopped putting a diaper on her to go out even.

Jesse has found a new love - himself. My mom refinished a full length standing mirror for me that goes in my bedroom and Jesse likes to play peekaboo with the baby in the mirror. He plays peekaboo by putting his hands on the top of his head and then pulling them off and yelling boo. hahaha. I can't quite tell but I'm starting to think that he's getting that it's him. Not quite yet but sort of...

Timothy had a friend over this week. He has nice friends. They played well together and then Josh drove him home after dinner.

Oh, so I was nursing Jesse today and Jocelyn lifted up her shirt and stuck out her belly and said to Josh "eat it daddy, eat the belly". hahahaha - he gave her a kiss on her belly button.

It was cold this week so I was mostly forced to use the treadmill. I did finally get outside yesterday and did a bit over 3 miles. Today my back was sore so I did a yoga video and then was feeling much better so did 2 miles on the treadmill. Of course when I was done it had gotten nice out, so I could have gone outside. Ah well. It's supposed to be warm tomorrow but I doubt I'll make it outside during the week until it starts getting light out again.

I guess that's it. It's been a while since we heard from many of you - time to ping! 

January 2, 2008

Ok, how cool is this - I remembered that I wanted to send Jocelyn to the preschool that they have at the high school so went to find out when and the director says I'm right on time and there's an open house tomorrow and Josh can take her in to see the room and give the registration and such. The session doesn't start until mid-March and runs until the end of May - so about 10 weeks. So 2 days a week, 2 hours each day for 10 weeks is $65!! ($45 fee plus $20 registration). Then you have to pay a $30 late fee upfront and if you aren't ever late, you get it back at the end.

So each kid is assigned to their own high school student (who has to observe their learning and write a paper on it). Then it runs like a regular preschool. I can't believe there isn't a waiting list!! Actually I bet there will be soon - I think this is the first year they are doing it. They have a separate entrance inside the high school. The director asked me how I heard about it as she was working on marketing for next year.

Jocelyn is going to LOVE IT!!